


metaphorically speaking

by HeartHarps



Category: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 01:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartHarps/pseuds/HeartHarps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"skeletonflight:<br/>AU The Fault In Our Stars where Hazel Grace succumbs to the cancer and dies and in the last scene all you see is Augustus standing out side with a cigarette between his lips and a hand slowly reaching up to light it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	metaphorically speaking

**Author's Note:**

> So everyone wrote one of these.  
> I have no idea why this sounds so unnatural in past tense??? but fml i'm all ideas yolo

Hazel Grace died eight days after our return from Amsterdam. Her cancer doctor knew the trip could affect her system, and was adamant about a check up as soon afterwards as possible.

Apparently good ole Phalanxifor didn’t like planes.

I will spare you most the details of me finding out and her week long descent into the death she’d been staring into for years, because I am not a user of words as Hazel is, but it basically felt like the pain was cheese-grating my insides every time I thought about her or looked at her perpetually sallowing skin.

She just never came home from the hospital. The doctors refused to confirm that the trip killed her, but I could not get past the fact that it must have. Phalanxifor failed and the cancer that was made of her grew and the cancer water that came from her filled her lungs. I sat next to her, and listened to her breathing while she slept.

One time, in a rare quarter hour she was awake (they were mostly instated so she could update the doctors on what they already knew, and visitors could pick up the scraps before she felt the sedatives), I had to. I had to ask Hazel Grace, “Any regrets?” because I knew this was at the fault of the trip, and the trip was my fault.

She just blinked, bleary, but smiling through the pain and painkillers, and said, “You caught the grenade, Gus. My only regret is blowing up.”

It took me a moment, but I could see her. Hazel Grace, firm in herself, cynical, unapologetic. Of course my own pain was my fault. Hazel had warned me, after all.

The most obnoxious fact of her week, was not, in fact, the mask around her face, or the cancer water, or the gown or the room or the smells or the sleeping. There were a lot of things I did not get used to seeing that week. But, the pain, it was demanding to be felt. I could not ignore that the love of my life was dying, or it was my fault. Hazel could not ignore the cancer in her lungs, her leaving us behind, or the nagging guilt in the back of her mind over her allowing me to catch her grenade anyways. Mrs. Lancaster could not ignore that she would not be a mom anymore, and Mr. Lancaster could not ignore that half of marriages end in the year after a child’s death. And the pain existed, and even if we tried to deny it, it demanded to be felt.

So Hazel Grace died, and it was the worst thing ever. The funeral was hastily planned for the next Friday. They asked me to speak. They spent the next few days at home. So did I. Death in the family, I asked my parents to tell the school. I doubt they did, though.

"Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world," I said, when the time came. "Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death." Already, everyone’s faces were getting worried. "We all want to be remembered. I do. That’s what I’m afraid of, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war of life. I want to leave a mark. But the marks humans leave are too often scars." People were practically wincing. I breathed. This was hard. This had taken me too long to write, and I still wasn’t sure if it made sense. But these had been the only words that I could get out.

"But Hazel believed in something different. She walked lightly upon the earth. She…may have pushed people away, so she wouldn’t hurt anyone when she died. She was a vegetarian, to minimize the deaths she was responsible for. But that was because, Hazel knew the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. A large legacy to her would have been about as useful as a concentration camp." I caught a glance at my parents. _I may be disowned after this_ , I thought. I pushed through. “People may say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, it’s triumphant. It’s heroic.” I finally see faces soften. Well, duh. This is the typical funeral part. “Hazel Grace was so beautiful. You never got tired of looking at her. You never had to worry if she was smarter than you, because you knew she was. She was funny, without ever being mean. I was, so lucky, to love her.” I can’t help but smile at this part. “And she would hate that I said this, but she did fight hard. She fought harder than anyone I’ve ever known.

"We don’t get to choose if we get hurt. Or in Hazel’s case, if we hurt others. But we do have some say in who hurts us, and I thank you all for choosing to be hurt by Hazel."

  


I cried. Her parents cried, my parents cried, Isaac cried. The rest of the crowd of people who said they knew her smiled at me, and thanked me if they passed by. I got out as soon as I could. I hobbled out into the street, graveyard behind me, Old Prosty pressing so very obnoxiously up into my leg. My heart pounded. Unsmiling, uncrying, practically unfeeling, I pulled out the cigarettes. I tried to breathe through the liquid in my own chest; the tears threatening to drown me as well. I bit down and slipped the package back into my pocket.

I pulled out the lighter that I found in the envelope drawer. The button stuck the first time, but I released a flame and lifted it, shaking, to the shaking end of the cigarette. It lit miraculously.

I inhaled as deep as I loved her, regretted nothing, and smoked on the steps of the graveyard.


End file.
